Cursed Lives
by Victim Of Fate
Summary: Yet another Ronnie/Danielle fic, canon up until the car accident, but with Danielle surviving. Please read and review, any feedback welcome.
1. Guilt

For the last twenty years, she had lived with a disease. A tumour had developed in her when she was just fourteen years old, and over time - and unseen by any of her doctors - it had grown in size and malignancy. Somewhere, deep inside her, the cancerous lesion was throbbing, and when it did it caused her the most unimaginable, unbearable pain that anybody could imagine. Yet nobody knew it was there.

No, nobody knew. To most people that met her – neighbours, co-workers, even her sister – Veronica Mitchell seemed perfectly healthy. She seemed beautiful, she seemed successful, and she seemed surrounded by a loving family. One might have called her cold, distant, even heartless – and people had indeed called her all of those things – but nobody could have guessed how much pain the cancer was causing her. Every day since the neoplasm had twisted the tumour into being, she had suffered. And she was suffering still, now worse than ever.

Ronnie could not keep her hands from fidgeting, as she sat in the waiting room. She dug her nails deep into the back of her wrist, in a fruitless attempt to distract herself from the pain. She was no longer crying, for there were no more tears left inside her to be shed. She was no longer sobbing, for she no longer had the energy. Instead, she waited. She waited for good news, she waited for bad news. She waited for a doctor to emerge and tell her something about Danielle.

As she sat, her mind periodically drifted back to events from the past nine months. She tried to remember when exactly Danielle had first arrived in Walford. When had this young girl first moved in across the street from her home? The most important person in her entire world had been in and out of her life for months now. How could she have known? How could anybody have expected her to know? Amy was dead. Her Amy had died thirteen years ago, so how could she walk around the Square so easily? How could a ghost have worked on a market stall without arousing the suspicions of any of her customers? How could the phantom vestige of a dead seven year old have got itself pregnant? How could that have happened?

After the abortion, Danielle had asked her about Amy.

"You said that having your baby was the biggest mistake of your life. Did you mean that?"

"Yeah, I meant it. My life would have been much better if I'd had an abortion."

How could she have known? She had felt sick after saying those words to Danielle. She felt sicker now, now that she knew she hadn't only betrayed the memory of a dead daughter - she'd broken the heart of a living one.

"Who would want a daughter like you?" she had asked Danielle earlier that evening. As she waited, Ronnie thought about the question. She thought about what kind of person would say something so cruel. She thought about what a person would need to have inside them to do something like that. As far as she knew at the time, Danielle was a disturbed and lonely girl who'd aborted her baby, become estranged from her father, and was desperately looking for someone to take care of her. What kind of person would say something so hurtful to someone like that? Who would want a mother like her?

Ronnie looked up from her own thoughts for a moment, and saw Stacey Slater sitting opposite her. Stacey's eyes were bloodshot, and there was a trail of watery mascara running down her cheeks.

Stacey was drunk. She was, after all, a drinker. Strong, loving, loyal (in some respects), but a drinker nonetheless. She had been drinking today, at the wedding. Drinking and shouting and puking. When Danielle had come to her, when her best friend had needed her, distraught, broken, this is the Stacey that she had met. Not the rock who would take care of her, who would shelter her from the volatile winds that seemed to be confined to that dank corner of East London. Instead, she got the lush. The alcoholic. The Stacey that had tried to entice Max Branning to her bed, once again, though their previous encounters had ruined both of their lives. This was the Stacey that had hurled a bucket of water over Ronnie Mitchell, leading her to shout at Danielle all those months ago.

As the mist of inebriation began to dissipate, slowly, Stacey thought about that night. She thought about all of the times that Ronnie had treated Danielle unfairly. She thought about how kind, and how sweet, and how harmless Danielle was, and she thought about how that family had treated her. And as she thought these thoughts, her own feelings of guilt were pushed to the background. As long as she thought about the callous indifference of the Mitchells, and of the one sitting nearest her in particular, she could avoid thinking about her own culpability. The mist of inebriation had indeed begun to dissipate, but it was still there in some measure.

"What are you doing here anyway?" she demanded. Ronnie looked up with a start. "You didn't wanna know her before!"

"Stacey, please!"

"Nah, this is for friends and family, and you ain't either!"

"I'm her mother!"

Stacey's outburst faltered for a moment when she heard Ronnie say this, though only for a moment. True, she was taken aback by the maternal passion in her adversary's voice, but she wasn't ready to go back to wallowing in her own remorse quite yet.

"You ain't her mother, her mum's dead. You're just some slapper who didn't wanna look after her kid."

"Stacey, you don't know what you're talking about!" Ronnie, too, began to realise that this was distracting her from her pain far more than fingernail marks in her wrist. "Stacey, you're drunk, and you don't know what you're talking about." The barb about her condition hit Stacey harder than Ronnie could have realised.

"Yeah, fair enough, I might be drunk, but that don't mean it ain't true," she reasoned, standing up to emphasise her point. "I wanted my baby so much, and they made me get rid of it. Just like you did with Danielle. Are you telling me that's what a mum does?" Ronnie blanched at this. The one thought that she had attempted to avoid, the one crime which stood out above her other misdemeanours, the one single horror that she had committed. She had told Danielle, persuaded her, to get rid of her child. For a brief moment, Ronnie slipped into a daydream – she was with Danielle in a hospital room, her arm draped around her daughter's shoulder, as she in turn held her own daughter in her arms.

"Why didn't she tell me, Stacey," Ronnie screamed, snapping out of her fantasy, and standing too. "Why didn't she just tell me?"

"Because of how you were with her, because of how horrible you were!"

"But if she'd just told me, it would have been different. I'd have been there for her. I'd have been everything she wanted me to be. If she'd just told me!"

"Yeah, well look at what happened when she did."

The last blow was too much for Ronnie, who crumpled back in her seat. Stacey felt a pang of guilt at the way she'd treated Ronnie, but – worse than that – her guilt over Danielle began to creep back to the fore of her mind. The momentary respite that the argument had given her was gone, and as she began to sober up, her guilt became more focused and sharper in image.

"Excuse me," said a nurse, "did you come in with Danielle Jones?" Stacey nodded, and both she and Ronnie stood. "She's okay, but we're going to need to keep her in for a while. Would you like to see her?"

As Ronnie made a move to go in with them, the nurse turned to her.

"I'm sorry, Ms Mitchell?" Ronnie nodded. "I'm afraid she's asked that you don't come in at the moment."

"But I'm her mother!" Ronnie cried. The nurse looked at her with surprise, this revelation clearly being news to her.

"I'm sorry Ms Mitchell, but she's expressly asked for this. You're more than welcome to wait out here, of course."

As she walked out of the waiting area, and towards Danielle's ward, Stacey turned and looked at Ronnie, defeated and broken in her seat. Whatever guilt was tormenting Stacey, she knew that she could be feeling a lot worse.


	2. Fathers and Daughters

He was not an evil man. No matter what charges were levelled at him come Judgement Day, he could at least console himself until then with his absolute certainty in that one belief – he was not an evil man.

Fathers and daughters… unless you've experienced it first hand, you can't fully understand the bond that exists there. You want to protect them, you want them to know, to know with absolute clarity that nothing bad will ever happen to them. You want them to understand that they'll be happy for ever and ever, because Daddy will always be there to take care of them.

The first time he held V in his arms, Archie felt it. The first time that little baby, his little baby girl, closed her hand around his index finger, he knew. He knew that he could never love anything in the world more than that little girl. He knew that he would move heaven, earth and everything in between to make sure she was safe. To take care of his little girl… but little girls, as the song says, get older every day.

She was such a sweet child. So caring, so vibrant, so full of energy. And she doted on her father. Four years after she was born he had another daughter too, and no father could have been happier. But every day, Archie was too blind to see, she was getting older.

For fourteen years, she was the apple of his eye, and without warning she was gone. Dead, just like he told Veronica that her girl was dead. His little girl had died, and in her place was something else. Instead of his wonderful daughter, that paragon of virtue, that testament to his abilities as a father, there stood before him… a slag. Girls like her were ten a penny in his neighbourhood, pushing around their second-hand prams with cheap cigarettes drooping out of their gaudy, painted lips. Just looking at them made him feel sick. Not his little girl, not his sweet Veronica. So he did what he had to do. Taking care of your kids is a man's job, it's what makes him who he is. He had to get his little girl back, he had to get rid of that thing inside her. If she'd told him earlier, he would have taken her to a doctor, but as it was he had to give the child away. He didn't realise, or else chose to ignore, that for every gain there must be a loss. For every loss there must be a gain. When he took that child from her life, whatever forces govern this world replaced her with something else, something far more damaging.

Archie looked around at the cheap room in the B&B. The wallpaper was peeling off the walls and the carpet had been worn thin by a thousand pairs of anonymous shoes. He was a rich man, used to far better things than this. But, he reasoned, these are the sacrifices that a man must make for his children. Incongruous against the threadbare carpet, he slipped on a pair of expensive Italian shoes. He was going to get his family back – he just needed to them to understand – Veronica, Roxy, Peggy – he needed them to understand that he knew what was best for them.

Roxy Mitchell sat in the living room above the Queen Vic, with her daughter Amy in her lap. She was restless, she was nervous, and she was scared. Scared of what Ronnie might do if she lost her daughter all over again, scared of what Danielle might be going through, but above all she was scared of something far more selfish, far less wholesome. While Ronnie could lose her child for the second time, Roxy had lost her father. The man who took care of her, who she could always turn to, no matter how much trouble she was in. It was as if she'd woken up from some wonderful dream, and was only now realising that she was in the real world. She had not yet learnt that dreams are only dreams because the dreamer cannot face the truth.

"Peggy? Peg, are you there?" When she heard his voice, Roxy felt a mixture of hope and revulsion, of love and despair. Archie walked into the room. "Roxy! Roxy, where's Peggy?"

"She's gone Dad. She's gone away, and I don't want you here when she gets back."

"Where's Ronnie, sweetheart? How's Danielle?"

"It's nothing to do with you! Please Dad! Please, just leave us alone!" The truth was, Roxy hadn't heard from Ronnie, and her sister wasn't answering her phone. Roxy couldn't focus on anything – one moment she was fretting over her sister and her niece (God! Her niece!), the next she was selfishly sinking into her own problems.

"You don't mean that darling. Everything I've ever done, I've done for my girls. For you, and Veronica, and my little Amy." She wanted so badly to believe him. She wanted so badly to believe from the depths of her very being that he was telling the truth. That everything, all the evil, cruel, manipulative things that he'd done to their family had been done out of love.

"What about Danielle, Dad? Weren't she one of your girls?" Archie pauses for a moment. He felt nothing for her, for this girl who'd killed his daughter.

"Of course she is, sweetheart. What I did was best for her too. You know your sister, you know what she's like. She's not like you, she… she hasn't got it in her to take care of a child."

"That's 'cause of you. That's 'cause you made her give her baby away!"

"No, sweetie. You've got it all wrong. She's always been that way, even when she was a little girl. I used to watch the two of you playing with your dolls. You remember? You were the one who used to play mother, used to pretend they were your kids. Veronica never did that – she'd get bored after half an hour, end up watching TV." Maybe some part of her, some dormant corner of her brain, knew what the greater section was doing, but Roxy began to invent a memory. She began to create, to dream into existence, the idea that Ronnie had always been the detached, distant woman that she now was.

"What I did was best for her, and it was best for Danielle. I mean, look – the girl grew up with a family, with parents who loved her, who cared for her. And look at her now. As soon as she let Veronica into her life, she was done for. Did you hear what V said to her, what she said to her outside the Vic?"

"No," she lied.

"She told that girl to get lost. She called her a freak, she asked her who would want a daughter like her. I love all of my girls, I love Veronica, but she ain't a mother. I knew it then and I know it now. Do you think I wanted to get rid of my own grandchild? Do you think I wanted to send her off to live with strangers? I did it for her, for her and V."

"But Dad…" she started to protest, but Archie wrapped his arms around her and Amy. She felt safe.

"Shh… you know I'm right sweetheart. You have to help me. I did what I did for the best, but she doesn't believe it yet, so you have to help me. Will you do that for me, love? Will you do it for Ronnie, for little Danielle?"

Sobbing, tired and in a waking dream, she answered.

"Yes Dad."


	3. Fairy Tales and Perfect Storms

Once upon a time, in a land far away, there lived a humble fisherman. One fine summer's day, on his way home after a hard day at sea, his pack full of fresh fish, the fisherman spied a bundle of rags. A curious man, he walked closer to the ragged package, and he realised that there was more to it than he had thought. Wrapped snugly in the dirty old blankets was a baby, a beautiful baby girl, no more than a few months old. She had golden blonde hair, sky blue eyes, and upon her left arm was a crescent-shaped birthmark. The fisherman was poor, but he was a kind man, and he and his wife had no children of their own. He picked up the orphan babe in his arms and took her home with him.

The fisherman and his wife took care of the girl as if she were their own flesh and blood. They fed her, bathed her, clothed her, and most importantly of all, they loved her. In time, the child grew into a beautiful young woman. She loved the fisherman and his wife very much, but she was young, and the fisherman's curiosity had rubbed off on her. So, eighteen years after they brought her into their world, she bid them farewell, leaving their sleepy village to explore the world.

Life in the village, though, had not prepared her for life outside. She journeyed far and wide, and her trusting nature meant that she was soon robbed of the meagre funds the fisherman had given her for the trip. Though she was hard-working, every employer took advantage of her gentle disposition, and paid her no more than a pittance.

After many months, she found herself living within the walls of the king's court. There, she had found a job working for a mean-spirited tavern owner. He paid her next to nothing, and though he boasted that he gave her room and board, in actual fact her room was a dirty hovel by the outhouse, and the board was no more than bread and water. The tavern owner was not only mean-spirited, but a criminal to boot. For years, he had pilfered whatever food and supplies he could from the royal court, and sold them to the highest bidder.

One day, a drunken soldier in the king's army staggered out of the tavern's back door in search of a place to lay his head. Though he had drunk more than his share of mead, he was quick to recognise the royal crest on the bag of grain he had intended for a pillow. He alerted the captain of the guard that the thief had been found.

The tavern owner was well prepared for such a turn of events. It was not he who had stolen from his king - in his employ was a young orphan girl. Lazy and wicked though she was, his generous nature had led him to give her an opportunity to redeem herself. By night when the tavern owner was asleep in his bed, she would creep into the court's granary and steal as much as she could carry.

The king was kind and wise, and he knew the tavern owner was a scoundrel. However, he could not be seen to take the word of a girl who had come from nowhere over that of this man who, though sinful, had many friends and allies in the kingdom. However, he did give the young waif a chance to plead for clemency in front of him and his queen.

The young girl did not understand that all she had to do to keep her head attached to her shoulders was to beg the king for compassion. She had committed no crime and she would therefore admit to none.

"Take her away," ordered the king, sorrowfully.

"No," she screamed, "please, Your Majesty! I have not stolen as much as a grain of rice, nor as much as a thimble-full of milk." The guards, following their king's orders, pulled her away, and in doing so the sleeve on her left arm was ripped clean away.

It was the queen who noticed it first.

"Girl! What is that, on your arm?"

"It is a birthmark, Your Majesty," said the girl, looking down at her arm.

"A birthmark? And where were you born?"

"I don't know, Your Majesty. My father – that is to say, the man who raised me – found me wrapped in a bundle of rags, eighteen years ago."

The queen went pale. Eighteen years previously, a member of the royal court who bore a grudge against the king had stolen the royal couple's baby daughter from the palace. Though all the king's men had searched high and low for her, she was never found. The princess's only distinguishing feature was a distinctive crescent-shaped birthmark on her left arm.

"My baby! My baby has returned to me!" cried the queen. The guards immediately lifted their grip on the girl, as the king and queen both left their thrones and ran to embrace their daughter. And they all lived happily ever after.

And they all lived happily ever after. But fairy tales are only tales, and poor young orphans never princesses.

The car had not been travelling so fast. The car had not come from nowhere. She could remember that much. So how had it hit her? Though it shamed her to admit it to herself, to even half-entertain the thought, Danielle knew the answer, the reason why she hadn't stepped out of the car's path, just moments before she would be reunited with her mother.

For an instant, and only an instant, she had wanted to die. Though she had been dreaming of her mother for years, though almost all the time she wanted more than anything to be reunited with Ronnie Mitchell, for one brief dark moment, she had wanted to die.

She had turned, she had seen Ronnie's smile, and she was filled with elation. But a fraction of a second later, it all came flooding into her mind at once: The adoption; the abortion; rejection after rejection after rejection; and, most recently, the phrase that was ringing in her ears – "who would want a daughter like you?" And in that instant there came about a confluence of events: a mother with arms outstretched; a daughter who wanted more than anything to hurt her; and a car with an inattentive driver. It was what mariners refer to as a perfect storm. And so, in that instant, she resolved to stay and let the car take her away. She had, in that instant, wanted Ronnie to suffer. She wanted her mother to hurt as much as all of those things had hurt her. She wanted to die.

All in the work of an instant.

"You've got some people waiting to see you Danielle," said the nurse. "Would you like me to bring them in?"

"Umm… who are they," Danielle asked, already fairly sure of the answer.

"I'm not sure of their names. They're the two young ladies who rode with you in the ambulance. Don't you remember?"

"Um, no. What do they look like?"

"Well, let me see. There's a young lady about your age with long brown hair and a slightly older lady with blonde hair. Shall I go and get them? They've been here all night, I'm sure they'd love to see you."

"The blonde lady… I think that might be my… my boss, Ronnie Mitchell. I don't really want to see her at the moment." Danielle couldn't face Ronnie yet. She felt guilty and she felt angry. How can you face someone knowing that, if only for instant, you hated them so much you wanted to die? How can you look them in the eye?

Stacey walked into the ward uncertainly. She was intensely scared of what she might find there. When she saw Danielle, she was pleasantly surprised, for a moment. Danielle's face was bruised and battered, but she had been expecting a lot worse. Still, within a moment's passing, Stacey remembered everything that had happened the night before, how her drunkenness had nearly led to her best friend's death.

"Dan?" she asked, timidly. "Dan, how are you?"

"Stacey?" croaked Danielle.

"Yeah, babe, it's me. I'm here."

Danielle turned her head slowly to see her friend. She wanted to tell her that she was okay, she wanted to tell her not to worry, but more than anything, she wanted to ask her about Ronnie. Was she using her best friend? Should she simply have asked for Ronnie to come in right away? No. She needed to sort her head out first, and Stacey could help her do that.

"Stace, is Ronnie out there?"

"Yeah, she is. How comes you didn't want her to come in?"

"I don't know. I just don't want to see her yet."

"But how comes? I mean, it's all you've been going on about for months, and she knows now."

Danielle didn't know how to answer that question. She didn't know how to admit what had been going through her mind when the car hit her. She didn't know how to tell her best friend that she'd tried, if only for an instant, to end her own life.

"I just can't deal with her. Every time I think about her, all I can hear is her shouting at me, calling me a freak!"

"I know she was out of order Dan, but she's in pieces now. I'm not saying you should forgive her right away, but I mean, she's out there now, and she wants to see you. I felt gutted for her when the nurse told her she couldn't come in. If she come in her now, you'd have your mum there with you. And I know you Dan, I know how much you want that."

"But how am I supposed to talk to her Stace? How am I supposed to look her in the eye?"

"It's up to you Dan, but she's there waiting. Are you honestly telling me that you want her to leave?"

Danielle didn't want Ronnie to leave, but neither could she face speaking to her. For an instant, she imagined Ronnie being there. Her mother would tell her that she loved her, she would stroke her hair and promise to take care of her. For an instant.

"Stace? Can you get Ronnie?"


	4. A Succession of Events

A life, it has been said, is nothing more than a succession of single events laid end to end. Each of these events is the result of a choice – make a different choice and you will end up with a different life.

Ronnie Mitchell had made some very bad choices in her time, and the life she had ended up with was consequently scarred. In a cold, bleak waiting room, she sat and thought about all of the poor decisions that had blighted her life. Somewhere near by, her daughter was lying in a hospital bed. She knew now that Danielle was safe. So why did she not feel pure relief? The relief was there, true, but it was polluted by something else. Not quite anger – no, she wasn't angry that Danielle had asked that she be kept in the waiting room. It wasn't just sadness either, at least not sadness that her daughter didn't want to see her. Maybe regret is the right word? No, that doesn't show us the whole picture either. She regretted her choices, of course. She regretted allowing her dad to take her baby away in the first place, and she regretted the myriad ways in which she had hurt Danielle over the past few months. But there was another regret too, one so horrible that she couldn't allow herself to develop it into a coherent idea. She regretted, just a little bit, that Danielle was okay. Don't misunderstand me, she was happy that there was no lasting damage, of course she was, but still… When she was sat in the waiting room simply feeling guilty over her words, she was also hoping beyond hope that her daughter would be okay. But she was hoping that any moment a nurse would come out and tell her that Danielle Jones was okay, and wanted to see her mum. That hope was gone now, that hope that Danielle would, in spite of all the bad choices that Ronnie had made, still want her mother. That hope had gone, and she mourned it.

Hope, though, can never really die. Stacey walked into the waiting room so quietly that Ronnie didn't notice her at first.

"Ronnie?"

Ronnie looked up at her daughter's best friend. Stacey's face was a mess, all tears and make up. Ronnie's tears had long since dried up, despite the pain she felt.

"What is it Stacey? What's happened?"

"She's fine. Well, not fine, buy you know, okay. She wants to see you now."

Ronnie laughed. It was an instinctive, involuntary laugh, borne from a single moment of utter elation. She ran, literally ran, in her heels and bridesmaid outfit, to Danielle's ward.

A life is a succession of single events, laid out end to end, each one derived from some decision made. A young girl standing in a road sees a car travelling toward her, and chooses to remain in its path. A young girl lying in a hospital bed fantasising asks for her mother. But each event is followed by another, and each choice soon forgotten. For one brief moment, all Danielle wanted was for her mother to be there with her. As soon as Stacey left though, everything became muddy. She was coming – the woman who'd given her away, who hadn't wanted her. The woman who'd wished she'd been aborted, who had questioned whether anyone would want her as a daughter. This was the woman who had held her after the car hit her, who had been dreaming of her for years.

Danielle undulated between these two trains of thought – Ronnie as the answer to her dreams and Ronnie as the cruel bitch – when the woman herself arrived.

"Danielle," sobbed Ronnie, "Danielle, how are you?" Danielle looked at her mother with longing, but longing tinged by a subtle but significant shade of resentment.

"I'm fine." Her voice sounded cold.

"Danielle… I'm so sorry. I'm sorry for everything. For everything that I've said to you, for the way I've treated you." It was as if whatever had been keeping Ronnie's emotions in check for so many years had finally burst from the pressure. "If I'd just known Danielle, I would have been there for you. I would have been there for you every second of every minute of the day."

"Been there for me?" Danielle asked, her voice still bitter. "Why? Why would you want to be there for me? You never wanted me, did you?"

"Sweetheart, I always wanted you. Since I was fourteen years old, I haven't wanted anything else. Just you."

Danielle felt like she was going to choke. She wanted so much for Ronnie to love her, but doubt and anger were still clouding her emotions. She wasn't ready to be happy yet.

"Always wanted me? Who would want a daughter like me?"

"Oh, baby! I'm so sorry," Ronnie wailed, "I didn't mean it. I didn't mean any of it, I swear! I thought my Amy was dead, I thought you were dead! I was so angry, that's why I said those things to you, because I didn't know. If I'd known who you were I would never have said those things. You have to believe me!"

And Danielle wanted to believe her, more than anything. Perhaps, she even did believe that it was true. But still…

"Why should I believe you? You didn't believe me. I told you who I was, I begged you to believe me! Why? Why didn't you?"

"Because my dad. He told me, he told me you were dead."

"Why did you believe him? Why did you believe him over me?"

"I don't know!" cried Ronnie, the absurdity of her actions hitting home. Why had she believed her lying, manipulative, evil father over her own daughter? How could she have been so stupid?

"I was scared. For twenty years I've been dreaming of finding you. I was scared. I didn't want to let myself believe something and then have it ripped away from me. It was last year, that my dad told me you'd died. Something inside me broke. Since I was fourteen, I'd been clinging to that one thought, that I would find you one day, and suddenly that was torn away. I couldn't let it happen again. I wasn't strong enough. I'm not strong enough to lose you now. Please Danielle, please! You're everything to me!"

"No! You told me that you wished you'd had me aborted!"

"Never! I never ever wished that, baby. I said that to make you feel better, so you wouldn't feel guilty. I never wished that, not once. Since the day I first held you in my arms you've been everything to me. The only regret I have is ever letting go of you."

"I can't take it. I'm sorry, I can't take it. I've already lost one mother, I can't lose another one."

"You won't my darling. You'll never lose me."

"I will! You don't want me. You want your Amy, not me. I'll never be good enough for you."

"You're not my Amy. You're my Danielle. And you'll always be good enough for me, and I'll never make you feel like you're not, never again."

"I wanted you so much. I wanted you to love me so much."

"I do. I do love you. I love you more than I've loved anything else in my whole life."

And the warmth in her voice melted the icy resolve that had been keeping Danielle aloof. All that girl wanted was there – a mother to tell her that she loved her. A mother who would take care of her, who would make her feel wanted again. Finally, after months of fear and anxiety, after all the heartache and misery that she had gone through in London, she had found her.

"Mum?"

Ronnie and Danielle both broke down in tears of unfettered joy.

"Yes, my angel?"

"Can I come home with you?"

"Of course you can. It's your home too, for as long as you want it to be."

"I love you mum."

"I love you too Danielle."

It was as if they were found themselves no longer in a hospital in East London, but standing atop a very tall mountain, one that had taken nearly twenty years to ascend. Past clouds of secrets and hopeless longing and abject despair they climbed, to that undying apex of contented togetherness. If only they could have reasoned then what they would learn through experience – that mountain-tops rarely signify a journey's end, for nobody can stand the maddening air for long.


	5. A Rush of Happiness

The wind blew softly outside the window on a sunny morning in London, and inside the flat an arm groped sleepily for another body. It did not meet its target.

"Danielle? Danielle?" No answer came. And then, panic. "Danielle!"

It would be a mistake to describe that first night as "idyllic". No, to do so would be an exaggeration, one that must surely have been designed to put an unwarranted sheen on this story. No, not idyllic. And yet…

Ronnie Mitchell was happier than she had been in a long time. To be specific, nineteen years, nine months and seven days. Finally, after years of anguish, frustration and endless, seemingly fruitless hoping, she had her little girl back.

Danielle was happy too, though she had been happier. Happier, for example, when, as a four year old, she caught sight of her adoptive mother having lost her in a crowded shop; happier, for example, when, while on a hiking holiday she saw a family of wild deer through a gap in the trees; happier, for example, when, after weeks of shy flirting, the angelic Josh Barratt kissed her at a party, letting her know that her crush was reciprocated; happier, in short, when her world was uncomplicated, when right was right, fault was fault, and love was borne from mutual affection and not from guilt and dreams.

"How are you feeling, sweetheart?" asked Ronnie, guiding Danielle gently to the sofa, "Is there anything I can get for you?"

"I'm fine, I'm just a bit tired," said Danielle.

"Why? What's wrong? Should I call the doctor?" asked Ronnie in a panic.

"No, mum, I'm just tired!" laughed Danielle. Through her panic, Ronnie felt another rush of giddiness at the word 'mum'.

"Do you want to go to bed then, baby?" Danielle, too, felt her head spin, when Ronnie called her 'baby'.

"No, I'm okay. Shall we just sit her and watch the telly for a bit? What's for tea?"

And that is what they did. They sat on the sofa in Ronnie's flat, eating takeaway pizza, watching television, as thousands of mothers and daughters do. They laughed, they gently mocked one another. When they found out that they both loved the film _Sleepless in Seattle_, they put the DVD on, and curled up lazily on the sofa, Danielle nestling her head against her mother's side.

By the film's end, Danielle had fallen asleep. Ronnie was unsure what to do next. Guiltily, she wanted to wake her daughter up. She wanted them to talk all night, like two people falling in love. She wanted to know everything about this girl, this girl who had occupied her deepest thoughts for nearly twenty years. She wanted to know what Danielle had been like as a child. She wanted to know when Danielle had first been kissed, whether she had done well at school.

Putting aside her own selfish desires, she gently woke her daughter and led her to the spare room. Danielle yawned, groggily and slumped unceremoniously on the bed.

"I'll just be in the next room if you need anything," said Ronnie, "goodnight darling."

"Mum?"

"Yes sweetheart?"

"Can you stay with me for a bit?"

"Of course."

Ronnie clambered onto the bed and lay alongside her baby girl. She wrapped her arm around Danielle and mother and daughter drifted into a tranquil slumber.

Less than a quarter of a mile away, another young woman with blonde hair and fierce determination was having a much harder time getting to sleep.

"… you have to help me. Will you do that for me, love? Will you do it for Ronnie, for little Danielle?"

Archie had gone, but before that he had gone on.

"I'm not saying that Ronnie shouldn't get to know Danielle. You understand that Rox, don't you?"

"Yeah," said Roxy, though she was unsure of what exactly her dad was proposing.

"I'm just saying that it'd be better for both of them – for Veronica and for Danielle – if the girl moved on with her life."

"Yeah," acquiesced Roxy, "yeah, I supposed you're right"

"I am sweetheart. The girl's confused, and scared. Her mum's just died…"

"Ronnie's her mum!" said Roxy involuntarily.

"…her mum, the woman who brought her up died less than a year ago. She's hurting, and she thinks the answer to all her problems is your sister. But she ain't. I know it, Veronica knows it, and you know it too. And the best thing for both of them is if Danielle gets on with the rest of her life, and lets V do the same."

"So what are going to do, dad?" she asked him.

"I've got a mate, he runs a holiday company. Club 18-30, that sort of thing. I've spoken to him already, and he can get her a job as a holiday rep. She can spend a nice summer relaxing on some island in the Med, get paid good money, make lots of new friends, and get her mind off all the terrible things that have happened to her in the past twelve months."

"Oh come on dad, Danielle working as a rep in Ibiza? Getting rat-arsed tourists to do shots out of each other's belly buttons and streaking on the beach at five in the morning? I don't think so!"

"I'm talking about the girl getting on with her life! I'm talking about her doing things that normal nineteen year girls do. I'm talking about her getting out of Walford instead of sitting over here playing happy families until Veronica gets bored of her!" His tone shifted subtly towards anger, though Roxy didn't notice – or else pretended not to.

"So what do you want me to do?"

"I want you to get her to take the job. It can't come from me. I'm going to make myself scarce for a few weeks, but I've set it all up. All I need you to do is persuade her to do it."

"Look, dad – I don't even know where she is. I haven't even heard if she's out of hospital yet. And even if I did, I can't just walk up to her and say 'Hey Danielle, it's me, your Auntie Roxy. I know we've just found out that you're related to us, but here, I've got you a job in a different country!'"

"No Roxy, you can't do that. You wait. You wait until she's out of hospital. You get to know her, and then you tell her about the job. You tell her that the money's good, tell how much she'll enjoy it. She will enjoy it, Rox. And it will be better for her in the long run. She can't stay here with Veronica, Roxy. It'll end up destroying her, sweetheart, and you know it."

After he left, Roxy Mitchell walked to the window and stared out at the square through the net curtain. She stayed there most of the afternoon, to tired and scared to venture downstairs to the Vic. And as she stayed there, staring blankly through the window, she thought about what her father had said.

Why should she interfere? Her dad had lied to Ronnie for so many months, lied to all of them. He'd told them that Ronnie's daughter was dead, he'd told them that Danielle was crazy. Why was she listening to him? But still…

Roxy could not get to sleep that night, as she thought back through her life with Ronnie. She thought through all the times that her beloved older sister had been there for her, had cleared up her messes and bailed her out of trouble. She thought of how much Ronnie had mourned for her daughter, for how long she had longed for her baby. She thought of how happy Ronnie would be with Danielle in her life. But these thoughts came others. She thought of how cold Ronnie could be. She thought of her sister, sitting in her office in R&R drinking vodka neat, sinking deeper and deeper into oblivion. She thought of how controlling Ronnie could be, how she manipulated and lied in order to keep Roxy exactly where she wanted her to be. She thought of how true her dad's words could prove to be. Ronnie wasn't a mother. Ronnie could end up hurting Danielle, end up hurting herself. Archie might be a liar, but his lies carried the truth with them. And maybe, she lied to herself, even as he lied about his motives, he may also have been trying to make amends. Make amends for all his lies and wrongdoings by setting his oldest granddaughter up with a new life, a life which wasn't centred around a mother who could just as soon abandon her and sink back into her misery. She knew what she had to do.

The wind blew softly outside the window, and inside an arm groped for another body.

"Danielle!" screamed Ronnie, certain that her daughter had been taken from her yet again.

"Mum? It's okay mum, I'm okay," said Danielle, "I thought you might like a cup of tea…"

Ronnie once again felt a rush of joy, as she had felt so many times in the past day, as she had not felt for nearly twenty years. They were here, now, together, and happy. For now.


End file.
